


the imposed rhythms of the passing time

by MMagpieMcCorkle



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Animal Death, Character Study, Child Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parental Guilt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, headcanon based
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 06:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16320995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MMagpieMcCorkle/pseuds/MMagpieMcCorkle
Summary: He's a hypocrite, slating dead-brained idiots for being obsessed with how genetics are involved with the outcome of children, and yet he can't stop thinking about it himself. Mostly, if either he or Mel are to blame for Josh's seemingly-sudden turn of mood.-A study(?) of Bob and Mel Washington.





	the imposed rhythms of the passing time

**Author's Note:**

> there might be more of this! i have HEADCANONS!!! about the parents
> 
> they're not the best but they do try
> 
> -
> 
> cw/tw for this chapter: mental health issues, graphic(?) animal death, child abuse mention, vomit mention, graphic (imagined) child death

Before they'd had Josh, Mel wanted a dog. She used to have a whole pack of them, she'd said, when she was younger. She and her two older brothers would walk Newfoundlands, Border Collies, German Shepherds, Labradors, Poodles, and Chihuahuas - every shape, every size, each loved. She's never mentioned what happened to the ones that died, or even that they _did_ , and from what Bob knows of her father, he doesn't have to stretch his imagination. It's best to just let her avoid it, he thought. No point digging up the dead things.

They had a dog, just as Bob was getting his foot in the door with low-budget but "original" horror shorts at film festivals. Mel was busting her way into the writing world, even though Bob had considered it a small pool - literary analysis, but it scratched and still scratches at the old status quo, and Mel's not stopped spilling the truth yet. No-one can turn her down.

The dog, a "charming" Yorkshire Terrier named Beatrice, was the first dog they'd owned together. She would be the last.

Not that Bob blames Mel, because it was an accident, and they'd both thought she was properly house-trained (apartment-trained?) by then, living with them for three years. But as soon as Mel, by then two and a half months pregnant with Josh (and they'd agonised over names! boys' names, girls' names, names for twins!), said she was going out to do window-shopping and recharge her brain, Beatrice had shot out the door-- If Bob was being honest, it had taken the dog a good number of seconds, perhaps a minute, gauging Bob's detachment from the world at that current time-slot, and considering the long trek from apartment door to parking lot where the shared, cheap car stayed. And then the little bitch bolted, faster than Bob's molasses-slow startlement, easily outpacing him. He'd thought she'd come back, so no, he didn't rush. It wasn't until he was halfway between open door and parking lot, still hearing the little thing _yapyapyap_ for Mamma  & Favourite Dog Parent Washington, that he'd heard their shared car rev it's engines, and a horrifying thought clicked, complete with the sound of a working Polaroid, in his mushy head.

A yelp. A crying howl. Car stalled. Car started to ease off the body. More whimpering. The car door slammed. And just as Bob turned the last corner of the stairs - bolted the rest of the way down, stomach full of french toast and orange juice in his throat - he caught the first high notes of Mel's screaming echoing off the otherwise empty parking lot walls. He threw up near Edwin Colger's parking spot. Guy was a prick, anyway. So there's a little sicky-sicky in his parking spot, so there's some orange juice with eggy-and-toasty bits in it, so what--

It was easier focusing on spite rather than his pregnant wife's agonised grief. And how instantaneous it was. And how she blamed herself. And Bob, too, though she never said it out loud. Maybe she should've. Maybe he should've owned up to it, at least, to feeling guilty.

But ain't that the thing? Easier saying nothing than saying anything, nevermind confessing. It's amazing either of them got to know one another. But-- well, _that_ was different. And wild. And terrifying.

Children are a whole different kettle of fish. Shit, they're not even _fish_ , are they? That's one of his shitty "Dad Jokes". Capital J. Mel says it really stands for "Jackass". You know, lovingly.

Of course he's still worried about accidentally letting one of the little rugrats loose and accidentally letting one of them get fucking squashed to car-pulp, baby lungs squeezed out like the body's a tube of toothpaste. So it's either the baby buggy or the child leash. "Harness". Whatever. It keeps Joshua from running into the streets or going near unfriendly-looking dogs or toppling off a road or down a hill or getting easily snatched up--

Experience with reality has not prepared either of them well for parenthood.

A small mercy is that Josh doesn't mind being picked up and carried around, abandoning the need for buggy and child harness altogether. And honestly? When Bob's not fearing for his young child's life and health, he's enjoying this parenting gig. His film crew and actors love Josh, saying he's the cutest thing since sliced bread. As though sliced bread's cute, but whatever, Bella's a bit weird, but nice at least.

But those are only the things that Bob and Mel can control. Don't squash your kid. Don't let 'em take a dangerous tumble. Certainly don't fucking hit them, or you might as well set yourself on fire, because then you're not even human anymore.

But bullying at school? Teachers' indifference? Nature it-fucking-self? What can they do about any of that? What could they possibly fucking do?

Nothing. Not really.

-

"You know how when--"

Mel looks at him. No, _glares_. He's drunk. And when Bob's drunk, he's an obnoxious asshole. Rambling asshole. Miserable asshole.

"--when some motherfuckin'... _those_ kindsa mothers, and fathers--" Yes, she knows. "--talk about the fuckin'... genetics between kids and the parents?" Mel thinks they're smarter than that: that they know that it's nature and nurture but choose to use whatever argument they like to discredit the worse-off people. And people are just shit. "Makes me fucking **boil** , M."

"I know, Bobby." She could tell him to fuck off to bed. Thank fuck that the kids are sleeping over at their friends' houses. No need for this fucking noise.

"But," he pipes up, finger in the air, and leaning over the arm of the deck chair, closer to her as if anything else could hope to compete with his presence, "I think sometimes they're right."

About _what_ , she doesn't know. She gives up pretending to read. Maybe she could just go for a swim. Bob can't swim. A bit too terrified of more-than-knee-deep water. She should be too, she thinks. But fuck that.

"How so?" Entertain him.

"It's my fault, I think."

And then she looks at him then. Indoor pool lights and overhead fluorescents wash him out to ghost-pallor, leaving the dark bags under his eyes a stark contrast. His eyes are glassy, and red-veined, a splotch of pinky-red particularly prominent in his left eye, nearest the bottom eyelid and outer corner of his eye. Always there, first.

"It's my fault. About Josh."

He swipes a thumb under his right eye. It pushes out a strained tear. He says he's never been able to cry properly.

"Bobby..."

"It is." His voice turns reedy, almost child-like and high. "If I weren't-- God, Mel, if _I'd_ tried getting better, he wouldn't need to, would he?"

He'll deny it, but he wants comfort, a crushing hug. She's much the same.

"We don't know what it is," she says, parroting their numerous prior conversations that've gone the exact same as now. Sometimes it's Mel who blames herself. Sometimes it's Bob. "And it's no use trying to blame ourselves, is there?" A hand on his cheek, palm against the tear track. Another tear follows, sluggish. Sluggish like brainwork. Sometimes it's both of them.

"I know." They both do. "But--"

Shame, mostly. And Josh is _more_ important, anyway. It's amazing either of them are basically invisible.

She doesn't kiss him tonight. But they lean together, forehead to forehead until Mel drags them both to bed.

The night's too long.

**Author's Note:**

> i have so much fucking (nebulous) backstory for bob & mel :)  
> :')


End file.
